Labor is still the party of the working class, the Education Secretary has insisted.

Bridget Phillipson, who received free school meals growing up, said the party continued to align itself with the socioeconomic group it was formed to represent.

She said she suspected “a number” of her Cabinet colleagues would say the same, noting she was “proud” of her Labor roots.

In an interview with Sky News on Sunday, Ms Phillipson was asked what the Labor manifesto mentioned “working people” a total of 21 times, but made no reference to the phrase “working class”.

Asked why Labor no longer “wanted to be seen as the party of the working class”, she told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “We are”.

She added: “I’m proudly working class, like many of us officevery proud to be so.”

She was said to be the first person to say that in the Sky News studio during the current series of its flagship Sunday politics programme, she said: “I don’t think I’d be the last if you asked a number of my cabinet colleagues. “

Labor has traditionally been seen as a party of the working class, emerging from the trade union movement in the early 20th century.

However, his claim to the title has been challenged over the years by those who claim he has abandoned his working roots for the center field.

Lord Prescott, who was deputy prime minister to Sir Tony Blair, the face of New Labour, famously said in the run-up to the 1997 election that “we are all middle class now”.